


Mystic Superposition Apotheosis

by chimeraproblems



Category: Touhou Project
Genre: Danmaku (Touhou), F/F, Fusion, Nude Danmaku, Nudity, Oviposition, Polyamory, Recreational Drug Use, Trans Female Character, Transformation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-08-15
Packaged: 2020-07-28 05:23:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20058709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chimeraproblems/pseuds/chimeraproblems
Summary: It's stage 6 of Subterranean Animism. Marisa is dedicated to getting the good end. That's when things take a turn for the divine.





	1. Encounter in Former Hell

Molten rock and pillars of fire stretched out around Marisa as far as she could see. Her hat drooped from the heat, and her broom bristles threatened to ignite at any second. This deep in the Hell of Blazing Fires, every breath brought in a furnace. Regardless, Marisa flew on.

One of Alice’s dolls perched on her shoulder. It was the one she had primarily been communicating to Marisa through. Several more dolls formed a tiny squadron in the air around her, their numbers slightly depleted after that irrepressible hellcat’s last surprise attack.

“You should be nearing the core,” said Alice, her voice tinny through the Shanghai doll.

“Gotta be, right?” said Marisa. “It sucks down here! It’s so hot I could die!”

She wiped sweat from her brow, feeling it instantly dry to a faint caking of salt on her sleeve. Thinking back to Orin’s attack and the evil spirits Marisa had barely exorcised while they dueled, she was starting to piece a few things together about this entire incident. She wouldn’t have to think about it much longer if she was on the right course through the Hell of Blazing Fires, at least.

“There’s no treasure anywhere in here, either,” she grumbled.

“Maybe the final boss will have something,” said Alice. “She must be down there.”

The Shanghai doll pointed below. Marisa shot out over a lavafall that heralded the end of the lake of fire she had been skimming over. The molten rock drained into a bottomless caldera that stretched out before her, soul-stuff glittering in the cascade. Nestled within the caldera was a brooding orb of fiery plasma, hanging in the void like a sun. Marisa nodded, patted out a tiny smoldering patch on the doll’s lace, and angled her broom down into the caldera.

She hadn’t been flying for a minute before the sound of wings forced her to look up. A dark shape swooped down ahead of the path of her broom and kept pace with her.

“A hell raven?” said Alice.

“Eh?” asked Marisa. “I thought the final boss would be here, but it’s just another pet!”

“You think pets can’t be final bosses?” said the hell raven. Her voice was powerful, carrying over the core’s dull roar beneath them. Black pinfeathers framed her face and flowed into a plume of dark hair. A red eye burned in the center of her chest, its gaze fixed upon Marisa. A rod that Marisa took at first for a cannon was affixed to her right arm. A cloak of stars billowed around her as she beat her wings to stay in front of Marisa. “You think pets can’t be _ gods?” _

“I don’t need you givin’ my tsuchinoko any ideas,” Marisa called back.

“I am Utsuho Reiuji, the administrator of the Blazing Hell’s heating power,” said Utsuho. Her voice was tinged with a tone in the harsh ground between impatience and hunger. She drifted closer. “Why have you strayed down from the surface, human?”

“Name’s Marisa,” said Marisa. “You’ve gotta shut this place down. It’s making a dangerous geyser up there.”

“What, it’s too hot?” scoffed Utsuho. Her left hand twitched, and for a blink it looked as though her hand was graced with talons.

“No, it’s spittin’ out evil spirits,” said Marisa.

“It shouldn’t,” said Utsuho. A fleeting look of uncertainty passed over her features before she broke into a sharp grin. “But you’re wasting your breath.”

“Something’s wrong,” Alice said with quiet urgency. “She’s eaten something.”

“Why’s that?” Marisa called to the hell raven.

“With this newfound power of mine, I’ll dominate the surface world. Why should I give a damn if my geyser’s being a bit troublesome right now? Soon everything will melt into my nuclear apotheosis.”

“Of course!” said Alice. “Marisa, she’s eaten a Yatagarasu!”

“Oh, I get it!” said Marisa. She scratched the back of her head. “What was it that other shrine maiden said once?”

“Who, Sanae?” asked Alice. “I wasn’t there.”

“Yeah, her. She said that some gods are a type of fungus. I’ve eaten _ plenty _ of bad mushrooms, Utsuho. I know how you’re feeling. If you can’t induce vomiting, you gotta sweat it out.”

“Who’d want to sweat it out?” Utsuho cackled, a harsh sound like a raven’s croak. Black talons burst through the shoe on her left foot. Her right foot remained encased in glowing slag. “I have the ultimate power of nuclear fusion! I have the power of the _ sun!” _

“Damn,” whistled Marisa. “That’s some mushroom. Be lyin’ if I said I didn’t want a bite.”

Utsuho’s fangs gleamed. Plasma flowed up from the surface of the core to wreath her body. “I’ll be happy to give you a bite. Just a little longer and you’ll crisp up perfectly.”

“Well, we’ve certainly found the final boss,” said Alice. Her Shanghai doll hopped forward onto the tip of the broomstick and unslung a doll-scale lance. The other dolls drew into a phalanx beside Marisa.

Marisa let her mini-hakkero slip into her grasp. The grin that split her face mirrored her adversary’s and nearly matched it for hunger. “And here I was thinkin’ I wasn’t gonna have any more _ fun _ tonight!”

With that, they flung themselves into heated danmaku battle. Marisa sparked her mini-hakkero and a torrent of magical bolts lanced out at Utsuho. The hell raven countered with a brilliant blast of blinding projectiles. As the spots cleared from her dazzled eyes, Marisa saw another wave of power kindling at the tip of Utsuho’s rod-arm.

“Ah hah!” she cried. “I knew it was a cannon!”

“This is the Control Rod of Divine Fusion!” Utsuho called back, leveling it towards Marisa once more.

“You’re shooting things out of it! It’s a cannon!”

“Atomic Fire: Uncontainable Nuclear Reaction!” announced Utsuho.

She wasn’t just shooting things out of her cannon-arm. She was shooting _ suns. _ Marisa skirted her broom around the circumference of the approaching sun’s corona only to see another wave of stellar furnaces bearing towards her just beyond it. The heat was unbearable.

“Hot damn!” said Marisa. “The kinds of spellcards I could make outta suns!”

“Stay focused!” said Alice. Marisa ducked as a whiplike flare of plasma lashed over her. She grabbed a doll from the phalanx and hurled it forward, sparking the magical payload sewn inside it.

“Love Sign: Master Spark!” she called, channeling her mini-hakkero through the focus of the doll. A scintillating rainbow beam blasted forward. She was rewarded with a gap blown into the oncoming danmaku and a pained squawk from Utsuho.

Marisa rushed forward into the gap between stars to close with her opponent. She found no target. Utsuho had already repositioned. The sound of wings to Marisa’s left heralded a strafing barrage that sent her spinning into dizzying evasive corkscrews.

“She’s fast!” said Alice. It was hard enough to track Utsuho, let alone counterattack. By the time Marisa adjusted to the next strafe and zeroed in her fire, Utsuho rose over the core to begin another all-out spellcard barrage.

“Explosion Sign: Peta Flare!” Utsuho cried. Marisa reversed her charge into an evasive climb, trying desperately to avoid being pinned against the roiling core by the onslaught of Utsuho’s artillery.

“Fast and strong!” said Marisa through gritted teeth. As she threaded between a pair of swiftly-decaying weaponised reactions, one clipped another doll. The doll erupted into a blast of nullifying magic and Marisa ducked into the brief cover it formed. “You like stars? Try this! Magic Sign: Milky Way!” she called, raising her mini-hakkero above her.

A tiny galaxy of rainbow-hued stars whirled out of the artifact in her upraised grasp. They were nothing like the furious stellar furnaces bursting around her — hers pirouetted through the hellish atmosphere of the core. They swept around the blast zone of Utsuho’s flares and forced the hell raven out of position. Marisa sprung after her and the two circled around each other in a cagey spiral, trading fire.

“You’re lucky I’m the one who came down here, y’know!” yelled Marisa over the chaos of battle.

“Oh?” said Utsuho, blasting out a stream of fire in lieu of a more articulate response.

Marisa canted out of the way. “I’ve been going easy on ya! There’s folks I know up there who’d thrash ten kinds of spit outta ya!”

“I’ve got ten things for you!” retorted Utsuho, drawing up another plasma wreath around herself. Marisa recognized the tell of a new spellcard and scrambled for distance. Utsuho spun in midair, teasing the plasma around her into distinct stellar orbits. “Blazing Star: Ten Evil Stars!”

Five massive suns swept behind Marisa to cut off her retreat even as five more loomed between her and her foe in a counter-orbit. The scant space between them broiled.

“Now she’s just copying me!” she groaned.

“You have to admit, hers looks scarier than yours,” said Alice. The Shanghai doll launched forward beams from its lancetip. The two remaining dolls in the phalanx huddled in protectively. “I thought you liked when they were flashy?”

“She gets points for that. But where’s the precision? The control? Shit!” A barrage of plasma bolts erupted from the stellar surface in front of Marisa and she flung out both dolls in desperation. “Loving Heart: Double Spark!”

Her twin beams scythed through the encroaching stars. The stars scattered from their orbits like prayer beads from a shattered juzu, sinking back into the surface of the core. Smoke poured off of Utsuho in the wake of Marisa’s direct hit. Her eyes blazed in defiance.

“You done or what?” shouted Marisa. It hurt to speak. Her throat was desiccated from the heat.

Utsuho braced a clawed hand against her rod-cannon and shrieked her answer. “HELL AND HEAVEN MELTDOWN.”

Twin suns choked off Marisa’s movements. They were the biggest thus far, nearly the size of the core below them. She lost sight of Utsuho. More pressing was the sweltering gauntlet of solar flares lashing out all around her.

“How much longer can she sustain this level of intensity?” asked Alice. The Shanghai doll had braced itself against Marisa to make as small a target as possible.

“Think we got her on the ropes,” gritted Marisa. She ducked under a whip of plasma that left the tip of her hat smoking.

“Really? She just keeps making even bigger suns,” said Alice. The Shanghai doll’s shield and lance gleamed in the oppressive light.

“Like I always say, you don’t know a gal ‘til you’ve threaded her danmaku,” said Marisa. “And her danmaku tell me she’s never used this power of hers before. Probably be dead if she had. This _ ain’t her.” _

“So you’ll burn through it until it’s her again.” Alice nodded through the doll.

“And if that don’t work, I’ve got another plan.”

Marisa sensed a presence nearby, lurking beneath the stellar surface. “Spying on us, huh?” she called, unloading on the hidden Utsuho with a focused barrage. The spellcard shattered. The suns peeled away, one plunging back into the core as the other slammed into the rim of the caldera and imploded. Utsuho emerged from the sinking corona, breathing heavily.

“This power that gushes out of me,” she said, her beauty undimmed and terrible, “The power of Lord Yatagarasu — you think you can stopper it? You think you can drain it?”

“I ain’t no vampire,” Marisa replied, “But I’ve been known to drain a gal or two.” She tried to catch her breath, but the exercise was agonizing in the sweltering heart of the Hell of Blazing Fires.

Tendrils of plasma flowed up from the core and into Utsuho’s body. “Maybe I’ll spitroast you before I head up to the surface. Just as soon as you give in.”

Marisa laughed. “You don’t get it. You’re just fightin’ for some weird flex. You’re all hopped up on it. That ain’t a sustainable goal. Me? I’m a warrior of love.” She adjusted her grip on her mini-hakkero, conscious of a subtle yet increasing gravity centering itself on the hell raven. “And I love the surface too damn much to let you go and slag it all.”

“Wouldn’t she need a plus one for a spitroast?” asked Alice. “No, never mind.”

“Bet that hellcat would,” said Marisa.

“Oh, true.”

“_ You _ don’t get it,” Utsuho called. She lifted her clawed hand over her head and energy whirled above it, contorting and compressing until a black sun blossomed above her grasp. “I’ve obtained the ultimate energy. The ultimate energy is nuclear fusion power! Won’t you fuse with me?”

_ Fuse? _

“That’s the Black Sun of the Yatagarasu!” said Alice.

“Final spell, huh?” Despite her exhaustion, Marisa grinned. “Let’s see what she’s got!”

**“SUBTERRANEAN SUN!”**

Utsuho announced her final spell and the black sun swallowed her. A tidal wave of gravity swept over Marisa, pulling her towards the black sun. Plasma from the core and lava from the caldera whipped past her in a whirling accretion disc. The black sun grew, siphoning mass from the Hell of Blazing Fires.

“Is this really okay?” asked Alice. She looked back at Marisa through the impassive face of the Shanghai doll.

“It’s all good,” Marisa grunted. It was all she could do to fight the pull. “I’ve changed the plan a bit. Just a few kinks to work out.”

“Kinks, huh.” Alice’s reply was flat and tinny. The Shanghai doll fired in unison with Marisa. Their blasts cut through the accretion disc and sunk into the expanding photosphere, heedless of gravity’s dance around the birth of the black sun. “Your broom is falling apart.”

Marisa’s smoldering broom remained airborne and broom-shaped solely through force of habit. “Look, if I’d known I was going to Hell today I’d’a doused it in salamander piss. I can hitch a ride back if the plan works.”

Alice stole another glance at her. “Do come back.”

Marisa winked. “Don’t worry. It’s the good end for sure. But I’m gonna need one last bit of fireworks, okay?”

“Understood.”

Marisa let herself drift as close as she could bear to the black sun’s corona, weaving through the swirling debris and adjusting for its constant growth. Within the roar of nuclear fusion, something escaped it to ring at the edge of perception — a scream of nameless, fathomless emotion. Marisa tightened her grasp on the mini-hakkero and hefted the Shanghai doll in her other hand.

“See you on the surface,” she said.

“That’s a promise,” Alice replied, softly.

Marisa flung the doll into the black sun.

**“MAGICANNON: FINAL MASTER SPARK!”**

Every ounce of her reserves she poured into her spell. Annihilating light erupted from her mini-hakkero, rupturing the surface of the sun that swallowed Utsuho. Marisa willed her broom forward, riding the irresistible gravity down the hole blown into the black sun.

She crossed the event horizon. A tunnel of light-swallowing black flame whirled around her. It collapsed behind her as her Master Spark drilled ever deeper.

“Don’t you worry!” yelled Marisa. She could barely hear herself over the blare of her spell, the roar of the stellar furnace, and the growing howl from the black sun’s core. “There’s way better things to do up there than induce nuclear meltdowns, and I’m about to show ya!”

Her broom shuddered beneath her. Just a bit deeper and she would reach the heart of the black sun. Just a bit deeper and she would reach Utsuho. Marisa’s Master Spark still shone out through pure determination.

It guttered just as she hit the core. Her broom gave her one last push of momentum, then crumbled. In the silence, she passed a threshold of surreal weightlessness. It centered around Utsuho, shining in the dark and the heat with an unquenchable inner radiance.

“How—?” Utsuho’s eyes flashed in surprise. She had such lovely eyes.

“I am a warrior of love!” cried Marisa. She flung her limbs wide and caught herself on Utsuho. Their lips met.

Utsuho’s surprise gave way immediately to a hunger for contact, for intimacy. Her body was warm, but compared to the black sun’s flames or the atmosphere of the Hell of Blazing Fires, she felt blessedly cool. Marisa threaded her arms over Utsuho’s shoulders, slipping beneath her cape’s mantle and holding fast where her wings emerged. Utsuho wrapped her wings around the two of them in a sheltering cocoon as the black sun closed around them.

Her kiss tasted of divinity. Marisa felt her exhaustion burn away as a new power flowed into her through every point of contact with Utsuho. Emotions flared in her that she knew were not her own. Sensations. Memories. Hungers. Her lips pressed to the youkai and _ the human’s lips pressed to hers. _ Marisa locked gazes with Utsuho and a sudden, reflected sense of self-recognition bloomed between them.

Her selfhood ignited in divine nuclear fusion. Apotheosis blurred the boundary of their corporeal forms. Was this some side effect of expending the dolls infused with Yukari’s border magic? Was this a result of metabolizing a god? Was this simply the meeting of magic that expressed the same hungers within she-who-was-Marisa and she-who-was-Utsuho? The distinction was immaterial. The sensation was _ everything. _

The black sun flowed around them as they fused in perfect weightlessness. Their forms blurred and flowed together in a glowing phantasmagoria. A pair of wings emerged from their back to bolster the mantled wings already cocooning them, then another. White pinfeathers sprouted in a crest around Marisa’s face to mirror Utsuho’s as their heads shifted into new position along their new, shared body, their kiss never breaking. Her kiss.

The gleaming energy of fusion played down her body and reforged two into one in its wake. Her hands — soft hands, clawed hands — played over her shifting body, explored new arrangements, threaded through her hair. The red eye bubbled up between her breasts and as it winked open so too did a glowing halo wreath it in the form of a whirling atomic model. Three legs resolved themselves from her lower torso, resplendent in black feathers and graced with fearsome talons. Slag still clung to the rightmost talon just as the control rod still encased her upper right arm. The constant embrace of the black sun felt as gentle to her as a cloud. The plasma that licked over her was as the pond to the koi.

_ Who are we? _ she thought to herself. _ This is godhood? _

_ We are new, _ she thought. _ We are something that has never been before. _

Within the intoxicating mantle of divinity that muddled together magician and hell raven, human and youkai, she grew aware of a new conduit through which she could vent the excess of her energy. With that conduit came awareness of a new need. It swelled within her. Nestled between her left and central thighs, Marisa’s womanhood stiffened, while hidden in the plumage between her right and central thighs, the heat of Utsuho’s cloaca flared. Appreciation and pride radiated from eddies of her component consciousnesses. The pressure grew within her. She was gravid with her own power.

She pushed. Twin cries of ecstasy sang out from her throats and rang through the plasma in decaying harmonics. Her body throbbed with the first egg’s pendulous presence, stretching the lips of her cloaca as she flexed new muscles to encourage its freedom. The second already jostled behind it. Her cries amplified as the first egg gushed forth from her. It spun, glowing and solid, through the black sun’s core before sinking back to bump against her body in the center of gravity. The second she held poised to follow it. A third pressed against it. A fourth egg already coalesced within her. Her excess power was vast.

Flexing an instinct at once new and timeless, she gathered a whorl of plasma in her lower left hand’s grasp. Reaching down, she let the plasma play against her cock. It was a sensation nearly as electric as that of laying her divine eggs. She gathered more plasma in a stronger current. Already two more eggs had spilled out of her and joined their own lazy orbits. Her cries grew guttural as she rutted herself against the plasma vortex. Her talons curled in the slag and the stellar fires of the black sun’s core.

She was unmoored from time. Her every sentiment and thought was bent towards harnessing and reveling in this sensation, this reverent pleasure, this act of sublime self-worship. 

Eggs circled her in the core like a miniature galaxy growing star by star. The pulse of the black sun was the pulse in her veins, and each spasm of her body sent solar flares flailing from its corona. She found herself aflame at the edge of eternity. Edging was among her specialties.

Every ecstatic vocalization was a prayer unto herself, every egg was a holy relic to her glory. Still she laid them. Still she rutted. There was another process playing itself out through her body in harmonious tandem with the eggs. All the human despair, greed, and deadly grudges that suffused matter itself in the Hell of Blazing Fires refined themselves within her. Climax closed in on her, inescapable, undeniable. She crowed out in harmonic bliss. Sublimated soul-stuff gushed from her cock, purified of its negative emotions. It flowed through the plasma and coalesced into delicate, half-molten iridescent crystals, glittering like bismuth.

Even as the eggs spilled forth, she had a premonition of the encroaching throes of another climax. She still had so much energy to burn through.

———

She drifted in contentment. She drifted for long enough that within her composite self she was able to reconstruct her constituent selves.

_ Whoever we are, _ thought her Utsuho, _ it’s really nice. _

_ Does it matter? _ replied her Marisa. _ We’re Okuu and Marisa and something a bit more than that. We ain’t gotta put a label on it. _

She flapped a bank of wings idly, pirouetting through the core in a relaxing orbit. There was a powerful love within her that shone towards many things and many people. It was as much a love for Hell as it was a love for the world above. It was a love that already washed over her constituent selves and encouraged that fledgeling love just beginning to thread between them. It was a love for hot springs.

_ I think this is gonna work out, _ thought her Marisa.

_ Us? _ asked her Utsuho. Her raven-haired head glanced at its counterpart. Marisa looked away.

_ The incident, I mean. We get Orin to round up the evil spirits and it’s just a harmless geyser again. The mountain god gets her power, we get our hot springs, everybody’s happy. _

_ But what about us? _ asked Utsuho. The blush deepened on Marisa’s cheeks, spreading out to her pinfeathers. “What about us?” Utsuho repeated aloud.

“Don’t get me wrong,” her Marisa said. Of course she knew everything she was about to say, but it felt good to voice it. “This power we share is really something. You already know how I feel about it. I know how you feel about it too. I’m glad we can share this. But—”

“The shrine maiden,” said her Utsuho. Marisa returned her gaze.

“She’s gonna give me one hell of a tongue-lashing if she catches me like this.” She joked to lighten the depths of that possibility, but they stretched out beneath the sentiment in an undercurrent of complete vulnerability. _ I don’t want us to fight her. I don’t want us to _ ** _kill_ ** _ her. Her duty won’t afford her the same courtesy. Her broken heart won’t stay her hand. _

She held herself with her lower pair of arms. A few minute flicks of her wings and she sank back into the core, cocooning herself in feathers.

Now it was Okuu who looked away. “You… balance me out,” she said. “You felt the hunger. You remember how scared I was. You have such a discipline and a competence. I don’t know if I can carry that with me if we — if we stop being _ us.” _

Her Marisa grinned just so her Utsuho could feel it. “Look, it’s just like bad mushrooms,” she said. Reassurance radiated from her Marisa-self and she made sure the emotion reached her Utsuho-self. “I remember you before you ate a god, too. You’ve got a good heart. You’re good to the people who matter to you. Now you’re a goddess, you just gotta remember that _ everyone _ matters to you.”

Her hoard of eggs felt warm and comfortable. She gathered them around herself with delicate wingbeats as she lifted her free hand to touch Okuu’s face. Claws traced her pinfeathers.

“I know you’re scared to lose us, to lose me — you’re a _ goddess, _ Okuu. I love being a part of that.” She felt more love than that, but to voice it was unnecessary.

“I know,” said her Utsuho. “I know why you have to stop. I wouldn’t want you to hurt her either.”

“I know I can make her understand,” said her Marisa. “But first she has to see that I’m still in here. That I can still be me.”

“We know how to do this again,” said her Utsuho. “And… I know you’d like that. Thank you.”

“You _ know _ I do. But I wanna show you around up there too. I wanna share the surface with Okuu.”

“You act like it’s over already.”

She gave herself a kiss. “Well… reckon we still got a bit of time,” said her Marisa.

She ran a clawed hand along her control rod. In twin voices, the goddess spoke.

“Let’s make some danmaku!”

———

She had ferried her glowing eggs to a sheltered precipice warmed by a split lava-flow. She had siphoned the black sun bit by bit into such a dazzling array of danmaku as none of her had ever seen or created before. She laughed in harmony with herself from the sheer joy and beauty of it. All that remained to be done was a simple task. She held the spells inside herself and dredged up her power.

“Self Sign:” called the goddess with two voices.

“‘Scorching, Troublesome Divine Flame!’” finished Utsuho.

“‘Just An Ordinary Witch!’” finished Marisa.

Light poured out of her body — their bodies. Atoms drifted apart in the divergence of individualities. Self cleaved from self.

Marisa was Marisa again. This was her first realization. Her second realization was that gravity applied to her again and she had no broom. She felt frail and tired and _ hot _ and now she was falling into Hell. Why did they decide to unfuse in midair?

Okuu caught her. This was an encouraging sign. Doubly encouraging was the smile she beamed down at Marisa and the kiss she delivered to the top of her witch-hatted head. She swooped down to land on a stable outcropping at the lip of the caldera. Marisa grew conscious of another gaze upon her. It was coming from behind a nearby stalagmite.

Orin stood, gaping at the two of them.

“Okuu?” the hellcat said. “Big Sis Strong Corpse?”

“Uh—” said Marisa.

“Orin?” asked Utsuho.

“I just swung by to check out the fireworks but this…”

“We can explain—” said Marisa.

“It’s—” said Utsuho.

“... is fffffffuckin’ **COOL AS HELL** ARE YOU _ KIDDIN’ _ ME? Okuu! Can you just do that now? Can you do that with _ me?” _

Utsuho laughed. She had such a lovely laugh that she saved for Orin. “I… I think so, yeah. Later, though. We’re both kinda beat.”

“And sis!” Orin wheeled to Marisa and strode forward to grasp her hands. “Holy shit, sis! I thought your corpse was a goner for sure! But then y’all did the thing and you’re still here and you brought back—” She broke off with a loud sniff. “You brought her back!”

Utsuho stepped forward as Orin turned to her and buried her face in her chest. Her voice was muffled and softly shaking. “You’re back, right, Okuu?”

Utsuho wrapped her arms and wings around Orin, holding her snugly and resting her head on her. “I’m back, Orin.”

Orin looked up and gave Utsuho a quick peck on the cheek. “Then let’s go home already, huh?”

Utsuho laughed. “I don’t think I can carry you both right now.”

“Dibs,” said Marisa. “Least Okuu can do after cookin’ up my broom.”

“Nah, it’s easy!” said Orin. “We just leave her here for a bit and then I can come back and cart off her super strong corpse!” After Marisa shot her a glare and Utsuho’s expression crumpled in chagrin, Orin flashed her fangs in an innocent grin. “Kidding, kidding! Mostly. I’ll go on ahead. See ya up there.”

“Alright,” said Marisa. She cracked her knuckles and scanned the caldera rim for the makeshift nest they had made. “I ain’t leavin’ without a souvenir.”

———

Marisa and Utsuho trudged up the tunnel linking the Hell of Blazing Fires to the courtyard of the Palace of the Earth Spirits and the rest of the Former Capital. At length, they emerged into the courtyard of Utsuho’s home and the dormant lava tube’s ceiling gave way to distant subterranean splendor high overhead. Snow speckled the courtyard.

It would have been a peaceful scene, were it not for the clamor coming from within the palace. A stray ofuda smashed through a high window. Snow sloughed from the roof as the building shook with the force of a multicolored magic blast within.

“She’s bomb-spamming again,” grunted Marisa.

“Miss Satori!” Utsuho took wing and crossed the courtyard in a rush, throwing the doors open. Marisa followed at a leisurely pace, partly from exhaustion. The sounds of conflict died down by the time she reached the entryway.

“—hostility is completely unwarranted, I assure you.” That was Satori’s voice. Utsuho helped her up as she untangled her blouse from the cords of her third eye.

“Just tell me what you’ve done with her,” said Reimu. She was breathing heavily but in better shape than her opponent. An array of ofuda fanned out in her grasp and a pair of yin-yang orbs circled her in a tight orbit. Her back was to Marisa.

“Oyyy! Reimu!” Marisa called. “What took ya?”

“Marisa?” Reimu turned in surprise. Relief flashed in her eyes. “I was… unavoidably detained.”

Satori dusted off her blouse and approached the two. “She was hungover from a drinking competition with one of the Big Four of the Mountain.”

Reimu shot her an irritated glare, then grumbled. “I think I finally understand what Sanae means when she goes on about peer pressure.”

“Glad I didn’t hog all the fun, at least,” laughed Marisa. “Anyway, incident’s over. We can get the cat to clear out those vengeful spirits and then head home.”

“Do you need to borrow a broom?” asked Utsuho.

Marisa nodded. “Wouldn’t wanna make Reimu princess-carry me back up there!”

“Your words are at odds with the contents of your heart,” said Satori.

Reimu looked away hurriedly. “I’d make you walk anyway.”

Satori regarded the two of them in sleepy-eyed disinterest. “You’re hopeless, aren’t you?”

“What happened to your broom, anyway?” asked Reimu.

“Burned up,” Marisa answered. Despite the cavern’s winter chill, sweat beaded on her brow. The magnitude of all that had transpired in the Hell of Blazing Fires still hung in the forefront of her thoughts. She had no doubt Utsuho’s thoughts and memories were in a similar state. She needed time to sort out what to say to Reimu, how to best phrase it, how to shape it into a form she could accept as both Reimu and as the Hakurei Shrine Maiden. And not a broomstick’s length away stood Satori Komeiji and her damnable third eye.

“She needs a new broom because—” Satori began. Marisa gazed at her with a queasy grin and desperation in her eyes. Utsuho blushed furiously. “—because—” Satori’s third eye darted between the two of them. “—hmm. I think I shall retire for the evening. Okuu, please see to our guests’ needs.”

Satori turned with a slight stumble and retreated down the corridor to her bedroom. Marisa heaved a sigh of relief. Reimu cocked an eyebrow quizzically.

“Look,” said Marisa. “You got your methods, I got my methods. We both get results. And Okuu here is even gonna keep the hot springs goin’.”

“That’s right!” said Utsuho. “It’s a natural byproduct of the fusion process. Can I get you anything while you’re here?”

“Tea would be lovely,” said Reimu. She smiled at Marisa. “You’ll have to tell me all about it.”

Marisa returned her smile. “I will. That’s a promise. Oh, and I’d kill for some chilled sake.”

Utsuho led them to a sitting room and disappeared into the kitchens. One of Reimu’s yin-yang orbs cleared its throat. A familiar voice followed. “Another successful resolution poached from the Hakurei Shrine Maiden, I see.”

“Listen, Yakumo,” said Reimu. “The only poaching I care about right now are some hot spring eggs when we get back to the surface.”

“Izzat Yukari?” asked Marisa. She cupped her hands to her mouth and called to the floating orb. “Oy, Yukari! Can you get Alice on the line? I had to detonate all her dolls!”

“One moment,” Yukari sighed. “There, go ahead.”

“Alice!” said Marisa.

“Marisa?” Alice’s surprise was evident even through the tinny signal.

“I assure you, you don’t have to yell,” said Yukari.

“Alice, I won!” said Marisa.

Utsuho and Orin returned to the sitting room with a kettle of tea, a carafe of sake, and enough cups for everyone.

“Congratulations!” said Alice. “Did you get anything from the final boss?”

Marisa slung her pack from her back and gave it a pat, winking. “Well, Alice, ya know what they say. Sometimes the _ real _ treasure is the eggs you lay along the way.”

Utsuho spat out a mouthful of sake that ignited into a tiny fireball. Orin suppressed a boisterous laugh in the manner of one who doesn’t wish to spoil free entertainment. Reimu took a long and measured sip of tea. She set her cup down on the table.

“You’ll _ really _ have to tell me all about it,” said Reimu.

“I will! I promise! I’m good for those. Just ask Alice.”

“She’s good for them,” concurred Alice. “Though, technically, I haven’t seen you back on the surface yet.”

“Sheesh! I’m workin’ on it,” said Marisa. She felt her strength and spirits returning with the presence of good company and chilled sake. In the morning — or what passed for morning in the underground — they could return to the surface. For now, she was happy to be alive, and grateful for those with whom she could share that life. It was time to start the celebrations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading my first submission to the touhou fandom! it's eggs. i know utsuho's "Hell and Heaven Meltdown" is technically only the easy/medium version of that spellcard and "Hell's Tokamak" is what she should've said but in my defense "Hell and Heaven Meltdown" is such a cooler name holy shit


	2. Nuclear Winter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Newfound divinity is a delicate issue within the political balance of Gensokyo. Marisa just wants love, but love is always political.

She needed to tell Reimu. On their return voyage to the surface, Marisa had been too damn exhausted to give full account. There had been no opportunity since then. Marisa felt it weighing on their every interaction — what few they’d had. Dealing with the continued fallout of the incident kept both of their schedules hectic. At least there wasn’t  _ literal _ fallout.

Marisa had gone to see Alice first, to keep her promise. She greeted Marisa warmly at the threshold of her humble dollmaker’s workshop and magician tower. Inviting her in, Alice cleared off sewing materials from her kitchen table and Marisa joined her for refreshments and light conversation.

“Enough of pleasantries,” Alice said over the rim of a cup of strong black tea. “Tell me all about it.”

Marisa told her all about it. She trusted Alice, of course, but this also helped her with the shape of what to tell Reimu. The tale was fantastic. It still sounded unbelievable to Marisa, and she had lived it. Of course, she had corroborating evidence. Marisa cleared off another spot on the table to display her trophy.

Alice took a sip of tea. At length, she said, “Goodness.”

It was nearly the size of the teapot, and glowing warmly.

Marisa scratched the back of her head and grinned with embarrassment. “It was, uh. It was a lot.”

Alice looked pointedly down at the shorter magician sharing her tea. “How on earth did  _ that _ come out of  _ you?” _

Marisa caught the precise thrust of Alice’s look and tried to sit up straighter, fuming. “Look, our combined body was bigger. It was still a lot.”

Alice finished her cup and set it aside. A Shanghai doll topped it off. She gave Marisa a warm smile, but one that some cryptic nuance rode. “You know, I always assumed you’d join our ranks one of these decades, but I must admit I could have never guessed how. It’s so quintessentially you.”

“Is it?” Marisa blushed. “But I mean, I ain’t yet, is the thing. I’m still human. We made sure of that when we… decoupled.”

“Are you?”

“I think I’d know if I’d stopped being me,” said Marisa.

“What gave you the impression you’d stop being you when you stopped being human?” Alice responded.

Marisa took a bite of pastry and mulled on her answer for a moment. “Because for a little bit in there I  _ did. _ At the height of it there wasn’t a Marisa or an Okuu. No clean divide, no messy divide. Not even a little partition like we were able to set up after a while. We were something else entirely. Someone new.”

Alice leaned an elbow on the table and looked out the kitchen window. Snow gently fell on the Forest of Magic outside. “I can’t decide whether that sounds romantic or terrifying.”

“Now that I’m on the far end of it, I’m leanin’ towards romantic. Coulda gone either way though.”

Alice savored the aroma of her tea for a moment, then looked back at Marisa. “I’m not so far removed from my own history that I’ve forgotten the moment I shed my humanity.” She smiled. “I’m happy for you, Marisa.”

Marisa sputtered. “Look, I told you, I ain’t a youkai! I’m just an ordinary witch!”

“True, you may not be a youkai.” She ran a fingertip along the rim of her teacup. “The prospect of evoking fear within you still seems tantalizing to the palate.”

Marisa grinned with a hint of defiance. Now that a youkai was theorizing on her taste, the conversation was temporarily in familiar territory. “Thought magicians like you didn’t need to feed on fear.”

Alice leaned back in her chair and returned a lovely smile. “Nor pastries, nor tea. I’m no stranger to a bit of indulgence. All that said, there’s a new air to you. As if your fear has become a forbidden evocation. Warded, perhaps.”

“I mean, I don’t feel too scared right now,” said Marisa, gesturing with a pastry. “No offense, but you’ve always been a softie.”

“Certainly,” admitted Alice. “The strongest negative emotion I glean from you now is anxiety.” Her eyes gleamed. “I’d wager a nice dip in the Hakurei shrine’s new hot springs would be just the thing for that.”

Marisa sighed. “Nah, there’s still all sorts of vengeful spirits in ‘em. Okuu said she’d come up with Orin tomorrow to help clear ‘em out.”

“Ah. Nevertheless. You’ll have your opportunity soon, I’m sure.”

Marisa slid onto the table, stretching her arms in front of her. “Never been one to like waitin’.”

“In the meantime,” Alice nodded at the glowing egg on her kitchen table. “What are you going to do about  _ that?” _

———

The next morning, Marisa met Reimu at the mouth of the wide cavern that led down to the underworld. Orin and Utsuho hadn’t arrived yet, so they sat just inside the entrance and enjoyed the clear winter sky. Marisa hummed softly.

She grew conscious of Reimu’s attention and shot her a glance. The shrine maiden was smiling faintly at her. “You’re excited to see her, aren’t you?” said Reimu.

Marisa laughed defensively. “Yeah, I s’pose I am. We really hit it off. I’ve been thinkin’ about all the places up here I wanna show her.”

That hadn’t been all she was thinking about. But she couldn’t tell her now, not when they were about to receive the subterranean delegation. Not when there was still so much to arrange.

“It’s cute whenever you get like this. Are you coming back with us to the shrine?”

“Not right away. We’ll catch up later today,” said Marisa.

Reimu smirked. “Thought of a place already, hmm?”

“Ahh, it ain’t like that,” said Marisa. “Nitori’s been talkin’ my damn ear off wanting to see Okuu for the power thing. Figured we’d swing by the workshop on the way down the mountain.”

“Might as well keep them busy while they’re up here. Keeps them out of trouble.”

“Not too busy, I hope. If gals like those want trouble, they’ll sniff it out no matter how much work gets piled on ‘em.”

A sharp whistle echoed up from deeper within the cavern. Shortly, two figures approached from the darkness. Orin had her arms clasped behind her head in a staged nonchalance. Utsuho looked slightly winded — the gifts of the Yatagarasu weren’t particularly suited for un-spelunking — but broke into a grin when she saw Marisa’s witch-hatted silhouette waiting for her.

“Well, well!” said Orin. “If it ain’t Big Sis Strong Corpse and the other one!”

“Hi,” said Utsuho.

“Hi!” said Marisa.

“I have a name, you impudent cat,” said Reimu.

“Now, Reimu,” said Marisa, “That ain’t no way to badger a lady into cleaning up a ghost spill.”

“Don’t worry, sis,” said Orin, winking. “This is a personal favor for the witch who saved my favorite gal in all of Hell.”

“Let’s get to it, then,” said Reimu.

Marisa turned to Utsuho and took her free hand in both of hers. “A kappa friend of mine wanted to meet you and go over the power plant stuff. I figured we could go there while Reimu and Orin start on cleaning up the springs. That okay?” It felt good to be close to Utsuho again. It felt good to feel her hand in hers. It especially felt good when she smiled in response.

“I’d like that,” said Utsuho. She squeezed Marisa’s hands.

Orin grinned hungrily. “More vengeful spirits for me, then. See ya there, Okuu.” With that, she jumped onto Reimu, shifting into cat form mid-jump. Reimu yelped as Orin’s claws found purchase. The kasha clambered up to drape herself over the shrine maiden’s shoulders.

“Cat,” said Reimu through gritted teeth, “I’m not a fucking transit service.”

Orin meowed, her tails swishing idly.

“She, uh,” Utsuho started, “She says she’s tired from the climb.”

Reimu sighed heavily and looked at the morning sky. “Whatever.” She lifted off and disappeared over the treeline, towards Hakurei shrine.

“I  _ know _ she can fly,” said Marisa.

“Oh, totally,” laughed Utsuho. She leaned forward, ducking under the brim of Marisa’s hat, and kissed her warmly. She smelled like a bonfire. On her, it was a comforting scent.

“It’s good to see you again,” said Marisa, after their first kiss parted. It was tempting, so tempting, to let herself slip together with her again. She could almost feel the same desire in Utsuho.

After their second kiss, Utsuho said, “You haven’t told her yet.”

Marisa shook her head. “It’s… hard.”

Utsuho squeezed her hand again. “I don’t want to keep hiding what we have. Who we are. Who we can be.”

Marisa sighed. “I don’t either. I’ll tell her. I just gotta find some time with her and sort out what I’m gonna say.”

“I’ll back you up.”

“Nah, I should handle this one myself. She can get ornery when she feels like she’s outnumbered. Thanks, though.”

———

They followed the river as it coursed down from the wild reaches of the mountain. It wound through thick forests and gushed through carved ravines. The kappas’ workshops were only a short flight along the river from the entrance to the underground. From the surface, only a few structures lay visible on the banks below a great cascade. Marisa knew that more were built into the cliffside and behind the waterfall. A gaggle of engineers milled outside the largest workshop, waiting to greet them. Marisa barely had time to introduce Utsuho before she was swarmed by kappa, each brimming with dozens of questions.

“Miss Reiuji!” An engineer would say. “What’s the optimal time coefficient for injection of fusion material?”

Utsuho would look off in thought and say, “Well, you don’t want to go too fast or the whole thing goes haywire, and you don’t want to go too heavy or it starts getting crunchy.”

The engineer would scribble down notes furiously, then say, “Thank you, Miss Reiuji!” Another engineer would have already started a new question. While the two were fused, the instinctual knowledge and application of fusion processes had come as easily as breathing. Seperated from Utsuho, it took a bit of abstract thought for Marisa to dredge up the feeling again. Her recollections felt imperfect and piecemeal, yet Utsuho’s explanations resonated with her nonetheless. Whether the kappa felt the same was dubious, but they didn’t seem to mind.

As the engineers continued to bombard Utsuho with questions, Marisa pulled Nitori off to the side.

“Nitori,” she said, “I got somethin’ of a personal matter I’d like your help with.”

Nitori looked irritated at being wrenched away from the proceedings. “What is it, human?”

“I need a special display case for an egg. Alice said you could probably help.”

“That’s weird,” said Nitori. “Do humans usually display their eggs?”

“No, but—” Marisa flushed slightly. “This one’s somethin’ of an edge case.”

Nitori rolled her eyes and started spinning a spanner around her gloved finger. “I’ve laid dozens of eggs and you don’t see me bragging about it. What kind of specs are you looking for?”

“Well, check this out,” said Marisa. She pulled the glowing egg from her pack. Nitori goggled. The spanner flung from her finger and splashed into the river behind her.

“Holy fuck!” she said.

Marisa flushed even brighter. “I mean—”

“What kind of supplements have you been taking? Hang on—” Nitori slung her oversized backpack down and started rummaging through it. She emerged with a clicking box with an attached sensor wand and ran it over the egg. The clicks remained steady.

“It’s kind of a long story,” said Marisa. “Uh, should I be worried about that?”

“Hmm? Guess not. Damn, I was hoping it was fissile.” Nitori stowed the Geiger counter and looked back at the egg. Her eyes narrowed. “Is this  _ really _ a human egg?”

“Humans don’t usually lay eggs, Nitori.”

Nitori turned her scrutinizing gaze from the egg up to Marisa’s face. Her eyes narrowed even further.

Marisa broke her gaze to glance over at Utsuho. Kappa still flocked around the hell raven, but she easily stood out over the crowd. She gave a small and slightly embarrassed wave at Marisa. Marisa smiled and waved back. “It was a group effort,” she said.

“Ohh!” Nitori straightened up and pat Marisa on the back. “Congratulations, hum— ah, Marisa!”

“You’ve probably got the wrong idea,” said Marisa. “‘Cuz the right idea’s like, way weirder. Anyway, can you help me or not?”

“Hmm. May I?” Nitori held out her hands and Marisa gently passed her the egg. “Oh, it’s warm.”

“Yeah, it’s been nice keepin’ it in my pack. Like a personal backwarmer. Think it’s probably magical or somethin’.”

Nitori remained silent, lost in a reverie of assessment and calculation. The kappa engineers milling around Utsuho finally depleted their reserves of questions and dispersed to put the answers into haphazard practice. Utsuho looked a bit frazzled as she joined Marisa. She rested an arm on Marisa’s shoulder and grinned at Nitori.

“Pretty cool, right?” asked Utsuho.

Marisa leaned her head on Utsuho’s arm. “Whaddya reckon it’s made out of anyway, Okuu?”

“I dunno, but whatever it is can happily withstand the inside of a sun.”

Nitori looked as though she was trying to drill a hole into the egg with her eyes alone. Finally, she asked, “Can I… run some tests on it?”

Marisa straightened up a bit. Nitori was one of the few people she could successfully loom over, and the witch never let the kappa forget it. “I better get it back exactly how I lent it to ya.” She cracked her knuckles through her fingerless gloves. “Or else there’s gonna be  _ compounded interest.” _

“Sentimental value, I get it.” Nitori waved a hand dismissively. “The thaumodynamic implications are mind-boggling. I don’t want to break it either.”

“We can always make more,” said Utsuho. She ruffled her hand through Marisa’s hair.

“Well, yeah, but—” Marisa subtly leaned into the ruffling and lowered her voice. “That’s from our first clutch, y’know?”

“Well!” Nitori passed the egg back to Marisa and hefted her backpack over her shoulders once more. “ _ Miss _ Reiuji! Allow me the honor of providing you with a guided tour of Kappa Industries! Now, if you’ll follow me…”

———

It was late afternoon when they reached Hakurei shrine. The sun dipped in the winter sky. Steam rose from the woods behind the shrine, where the geyser and its springs had emerged. The main path had been cleared of snow. Marisa led Utsuho to land in the side courtyard next to the residence. At this time of day, it was most likely they’d find Reimu anchored to the kotatsu.

Marisa’s heart always started beating a little faster every time she came to the shrine. This time, its pace sped for a different emotional response entirely. She slid the door open.

“We’re back!” said Marisa.

Reimu sat at the kotatsu, as expected. “Welcome back,” she said.

“Ah, just the woman I wanted to see,” said her guest. Sitting across from Reimu was the head reporter, editor, and proprietor of the Bunbunmaru Newspaper, Aya Shameimaru. The crow tengu smiled pleasantly. “I’m told you had the good fortune of resolving this latest incident.”

“Hgrk,” said Marisa.

“Oh!” Aya’s gaze flicked from Marisa to Utsuho and she stood in greeting. “And you must be the final boss. Aya Shameimaru, with the Bunbunmaru Newspaper.” She offered her hand and Utsuho shook it.

“Utsuho Reiuji, administrator of the Blazing Hell’s heating power. Nice to meet you. What’s a newspaper?”

“Makes for a good firestarter if you can’t find dry brush,” said Reimu, sipping her tea.

Aya flourished her notebook and tapped it to her brow, just under the bill of her newsboy cap. “It is the journalistic publication through which the denizens of Gensokyo remained informed and socially conscious. The organ that pumps truth itself through the body of our society.”

“It’s a gossip rag,” grunted Marisa. “I ain’t got nothin’ to say to the damn paparazzi.”

“You wound me, Marisa,” said Aya. “Think of all your adoring fans just  _ waiting _ for a riveting account of your latest heroic exploits. Unless, of course—” In a blink, she flipped her notebook to a new page and pressed her pen to it. “—you triumphed through less-than-heroic means?”

“Nah,” said Utsuho. She looped an arm around Marisa’s waist and pulled her into a squeeze. “She beat me fair and square.”

“I did?” said Marisa.

“You did! Give yourself some credit.”

Aya jotted notes in feverish shorthand. “A high-stakes duel in the heart of Hell. A thief with a heart of gold is all that stands between Gensokyo and total geothermal devastation. And the climax…?”

Marisa’s heart pounded. Reimu watched the conversation with a bemused disinterest. The slightest hint of what had transpired down below could transmute that disinterest into an exceptionally pointed interest that Marisa would prefer to avoid entirely.

“Well…” Utsuho looked away. “She convinced me that there’s things on the surface to love.”

Marisa blushed. “Look, the  _ how _ of it ain’t important. Okuu here’s got the power of Lord Yatagarasu, but it was that god from the Moriya shrine who told her where to get it.”

“That’s true!” said Utsuho. “I would’ve never known there was a god’s corpse to eat somewhere in the Hell of Blazing Fires if she hadn’t come down and pointed it out.”

Marisa nodded triumphantly. “Exactly! You want the real scoop? Go bug her!”

“I assure you, Miss Kirisame, the  _ how _ of it is of the  _ utmost _ importance. But,” Aya stowed her pen and notebook, her eyes gleaming. “—I must thank you both for that lead and your time. It confirms some suspicions of mine. I’ll pencil you in for an in-depth interview tomorrow, yes?”

“Uh—” said Marisa.

“Excellent! It’s a date,” Aya smiled and lifted her camera. “Portrait for the article?”

“What? Sure, but—” Utsuho still had her arm around Marisa.

“Hold it—!” Marisa sputtered. The camera flashed.

Aya gave a lazy wave and stepped past them out the door. “Tomorrow, then. Ciao!” With that, she took flight into the winter sky, her blazer flapping softly around her.

Marisa shook her fist at the retreating tengu. “Goddamn paparazzi!” Well. Now she had a time limit.

Reimu took another sip of tea. “Come in and close the door already, you’re letting in cold air.”

“Right, right,” Marisa sighed and joined her at the kotatsu.

“Uh, I’m gonna—” Utsuho gestured out the door anxiously. “I’m gonna check on Orin, okay?”

“Have fun,” said Reimu. Once Utsuho closed the door behind her, she turned to Marisa. “Pretty quick thinking, getting that reporter out of here. I’m a bit surprised you passed up the chance to brag, though.”

“Is it that special an occasion? You only beat me fifty percent of the time.”

“Sixty.”

“Sixty, sure. Anyway, I’m beat,” said Marisa. “Been crawling through kappa tunnels all day. Didn’t feel like bragging.”

Reimu took a cookie from the tray in the middle of the kotatsu and nibbled, waiting for Marisa to fill the silence.

“I just wanted to tell you before it was all over the papers, y’know?”

Reimu laughed softly and leaned onto her elbows. “You know I’m fine with you seeing other women. I like seeing what they bring out in you.”

Marisa blushed and took the opportunity to pour herself a cup of tea.

Reimu continued. “You seem different when she’s around. I don’t know what it is but you’re almost… radiant.”

“Since when do you call me radiant?” said Marisa, equal parts flustered and incredulous.

Reimu’s head jerked in surprise, as though she consciously realized what she had just said, but stayed her course. “I’m serious! I really don’t know what it is!”

“It’s…” Marisa searched for the words and found herself wanting. “Tell you what. Let’s you and me have a private party at the springs tonight and I’ll tell you all about it.”

———

By the time Utsuho and Orin had finished for the evening, the springs were much safer. The few spirits still lurking in the mists posed little active threat to a pair of seasoned youkai hunters. Every now and again one would flit overhead and the full moon’s light would refract through the steam and the mists in a spectral kaleidoscope. There was still quite a bit of masonry work to be done before the springs could reach their ideal form, but one or two natural pools held steady at human-tolerable temperatures. The setting was as lovely as Marisa’s company. They had sake, a few snacks, a joint pilfered from Nitori’s hydroponics, and yet still Marisa couldn’t fully relax.

Their clothes lay on the dry safety of a nearby rock. The pool they shared was small and made for an intimate proximity. Under normal circumstances, Marisa would have reveled in it. The secret weighing down on her only made her feel guilty about it.

“You really pulled out that ‘warrior of love’ line again, huh?” laughed Reimu.

“It’s cuz I am! Bite me!” sputtered Marisa.

“Thief of love, maybe.” Reimu punctuated her comeback with a sip of sake.

“I’ve never taken love that wasn’t freely given.” Marisa lifted a hand from the water to tug on the brim of her witch hat, then felt a new pang of guilt over how much she was enjoying the repartee.

“So you’ve drawn out her final spell.” Reimu motioned with her sake cup to continue.

“So Okuu goes— ‘The ultimate energy is nuclear fusion energy!’” A bit of uncertainty tripped her up in the midst of her recounting. “Uh, ‘Won’t you fuse with me?’” She glanced at Reimu. The shrine maiden said nothing but took another sip of sake. Had her gaze changed? Had she already sensed the conclusion? It was impossible to say. Marisa continued. “And she busts out one called ‘SUBTERRANEAN SUN’ and the Black Sun of the Yatagarasu basically just fuckin’ eats her. It was huge. She changed  _ gravity.” _

Reimu whistled. “Do I need to amend the spellcard rules?”

“I wouldn’t complain, but you’d probably break her heart.” Marisa took a gulp of sake. “So Okuu’s just  _ screamin’ _ in there. And now I’m thinkin’, this sun she made’s tryin’ to suck me up, my broom ain’t gonna make it back to Chirei, well,  _ I _ got a final spell too. I promise Alice I’ll see her back up there, and I use her last doll to blow a hole clean through the sun. I go in, and I go in  _ hard.” _

“You flew  _ into _ the sun?” Reimu asked in disbelief.

“Look, there was only one pair of wings down there and that’s where it was.” Marisa topped off her own sake cup again.

“You have  _ got _ to learn to fly for real one of these days.”

“Excuse me? What do you call what I do with my broom?”

Reimu waved her off. “You know what I mean. Go on.”

“So I’m Final Sparkin’ my way down. I finally reach the core right as my broom’s about to fall apart. Okuu’s all ‘What??’ and I’m like—” Marisa stood from the pool, arms flung wide.  **“I AM A WARRIOR OF LOVE!”**

Reimu shielded her sake cup from the splash and burst out laughing.

Marisa chuckled, and the guilt flared stronger. “I land on her. We kiss. And that’s, uh. That’s when...”

She lowered herself onto the natural lip of the pool and clasped her cup before her. Reimu’s laughter settled as she sensed Marisa’s mood shift. All the fire and brashness deflated from Marisa’s posture. “That’s when I did something I’ve seen you kill people over.”

Reimu blinked.

Marisa forced herself to meet her gaze. “We, uh. We fused. I fused with a youkai.”

“Fused?” Reimu’s voice was terribly quiet.

“My Okuu, she can take the stuff that you’re made of, that I’m made of, that everything’s made of, the tiniest stuff, and she can just  _ push _ that stuff together until it’s something new. And she did that with us. We were something new down there, together.”

“Why are you telling me this?” asked Reimu. Her voice wavered.

Marisa felt her face burning. “Because I don’t want to hide things from you! Because I would’ve fucking died if I hadn’t and then I’d never see you again!”

Reimu’s gaze widened. A shockwave of cold fury raced through that gaze. “If she made you do it—”

“No!” Marisa pointed forcefully, sloshing sake from her cup. She sat up and felt the fire returning. “Let me fucking finish! Because I was an  _ active participant! _ Because I  _ liked _ it and  _ I’d do it again! _ Because _ I want to do it again. _ We were a fucking  _ goddess, _ Reimu.”

“Do you think,” Reimu’s voice shook, “the balance of Gensokyo is a game?”

“That ain’t—”

“Let me finish.” Reimu stood from the pool. Steam roiled from her skin in the winter moonlight. “Do you know how many factions are breathing down my neck at any given moment? Do you have any idea the level of scrutiny that falls on my every action? Do you know how much deliberation I do every day before I decide to do  _ anything? _ I’ve heard you out on the hunt, Marisa. It’s all ‘final boss’ and ‘treasure’ and ‘experience points’. There’s always been a tiny part of me, when you joke about it—” She took a deep breath. “—that gets really pissed off.”

Marisa scrambled to her feet. “Are we airing grievances? Well it’s always pissed me off how you get to be a real purity-obsessed weirdo sometimes!”

Reimu willed herself slowly upwards from the water until she hovered over Marisa. Moonlight caught on her tears. “Do you think I had  _ any _ say in turning out that way? This is my duty! This is my  _ life! _ And it’s all just a fucking  _ game _ to you, isn’t it?”

“Reimu…”

“Don’t.” Reimu held out a hand and her purification rod flew to her grasp.

Marisa’s shoulders sank, but she stood her ground. “That’s how it is, huh?”

“This is a duel.” Reimu’s breath shuddered. “If it were anyone but you, it would be an extermination.”

“Feels about the same from this end,” Marisa said. She snapped her fingers, and her mini-hakkero jumped to her. Reimu floated backwards and disappeared into the ghostly steam.

Marisa suppressed a shiver. The ambient temperature of the hot springs helped keep the worst of the night’s chill at bay, but all she had was her hat. She took no solace in the fact that Reimu must have been suffering similarly. It wasn’t supposed to go like this.

“I’m still human, Reimu!” Marisa cried to the mists. “Ain’t that count for anything?”

“Spirit Sign: Fantasy Seal!” Rainbow blasts of energy thrummed through the mists at head-level. Marisa ducked out of the way and snapped off a quick counterattack in the vague direction of their origin.

Marisa scrambled to a new position. The bare rock of the springs was sharp underfoot, and she had left her broom back at the shrine. The slightest misstep could send her into a thermal pool hot enough to boil her. Colder than the night was the logistical weight in the forefront of Marisa’s mind: Reimu won their duels sixty percent of the time when they were on equal footing. This was anything but equal. The perfect environment for a romantic evening’s soak was suddenly an inescapable tactical nightmare.

She couldn’t pick out her target through the swirling mists, but precision had never been Marisa’s forte. “Celestial Apparatus: Orreries Universe!” Magical orbs coalesced around her and sent searing beams cutting across the hot springs. It made her position unmistakable, but she was already moving. She heard the clatter of exorcism needles impacting on the rocks behind her.

“You think I have the liberty to let this one slide?” Reimu cried from the darkness. Marisa swung a beam towards her voice, but had no way of knowing if she had scored a hit. Moments later, Reimu’s next attack came. “Divine Arts: Omnidirectional Dragon-Slaying Circle!”

A storm of ofuda slashed over Marisa. Clearly, Reimu had the same realization towards their battlefield’s visibility. The witch skittered to find any sort of cover. She suppressed a yelp of pain as an ofuda slapped against her shoulder and sizzled against her bare skin before she could rip it away.

They had always hurt. Had they always sizzled?

The pain awoke some primal response within her. “Who are we hurting?” cried Marisa, half growl and half scream. She lifted her mini-hakkero above her to gather power and slammed it against the ground. “Light Sign: Earthlight Ray!” As the power of her spell poured into the earth, her mini-hakkero split along its eight panes. The artifact flowed up her arm in a segmented wave, stopping at her elbow. She could feel it as a new conduit for her magic.

An arm-cannon. That was new.

The ground rumbled. Cracks spread out across the springs and light seeped through them. Pillars of light erupted from nodes on the geothermal leylines and speared into the night sky. She spotted Reimu at last, wheeling in midair from a blast. She was hurt, too.

“It’s not about that!” the shrine maiden cried. “It’s about the division between humans and youkai! It’s so the humans don’t turn themselves into something that preys on other humans!”

“That’s a shitty excuse and I know you know it!” barked Marisa.

“Great Barrier: Hakurei Danmaku Barrier!”

The ground beneath Marisa gave way to open sky as Reimu wove her boundary magic against her. She found herself falling over the springs through a maze of boundaries and spiralling cords of needles. Some instinct within her  _ pushed _ and for just a moment, she found herself suspended in midair under her own power. Flying.

Before she could harness this new ability, a storm of needles sprayed from the boundary above her. She tried to dodge, tried to blast them away, but they came from too many angles. Bleeding, she fell. She hit the hard ground.

Reimu drifted through the steam towards her. Marisa braced her cannon against the ground and tried to lift herself. Her strength had fled her.

“What happened to this bein’ a duel?” she croaked.

Reimu held the gohei readied before her, clasping its streamers in her off-hand. Even battered as she was, with red welts livid on her skin from where magic and steam had scored her, her poise was unflinching. She was every bit the perfect shrine maiden.

“What happened to  _ you?” _ said Reimu. Her faltering voice held none of her poise. “Since when do you have an arm cannon?”

“Guess she’s rubbin’ off on me,” said Marisa. Her mouth tasted of blood. Her instincts screamed for her to escape, but she couldn’t even stand.

“I didn’t want this,” said Reimu. She raised the rod. There came the sound of wings.

The geyser erupted behind Reimu. She flinched in surprise.

“Marisa!” cried Utsuho, diving from the night sky. Black wings folded around the fallen witch. Utsuho lifted Marisa from the ground and she leaned back into the embrace.

“Okuu…” said Marisa. “I messed up.”

Power flooded into her. It was familiar and welcome, like a missing piece of herself slotted back into place. She felt herself sinking back into Utsuho. The touch of her mind returned to her. With it, she felt all of her anguish, all of her empathy, all of her fury, all of her love. The power of the goddess melded them together and burned away the exhaustion and pain.

Wings sprouted, bodies merged, limbs shifted, feathers flowed across her reassembling form. The hakkero-cannon burst from her lower arm and reattached, segment by segment, to her control rod until it formed an instrument of sublime force. She raised herself to standing on three talons of a divine raven. The red eye winked open on her chest and flared its halo. Within the cocoon of her burgeoning wings, she reading her four arms in combat stance.

With a harmonic cry, she whipped open her wings to reveal her full splendor. The gust blew away the steam and clinging mists. Her cloak of stars billowed behind her.

“We are the Lady of the Black Sun,” she said. Tears streaked her faces. “Please, surrender.”

Reimu lowered her arms from where she held them to shield her face. Her expression contorted with a riot of emotions, from envy to heartache to awe.

“You know I can never have that,” said Reimu. Her voice was guttural. She wept with rage. “You’re just flaunting it.”

“Reimu, please,” said her Marisa. “You can’t win.”

“I really can’t,” said Reimu. She rose higher and prepared an attack.

The Lady gave her no opportunity. She leveled her cannon and called forth her first and final spell.

**“BLACK SUN: MAIN SEQUENCE MANDALA.”**

A fulgurating beam erupted from her cannon and seared glyphs in the language of the heavens into the sky surrounding Reimu. From each glyph cascaded whirling microcosms of rainbow-hued suns, confounding all sense of scale and constricting around her in a dire syzygy. The Lady of the Black Sun had forged the machinery of the cosmos into a weapon of unparalleled grandeur.

The spellcard ran its course with a grim inexorability. Night reasserted itself. Hovering in the sky, against all reason, was Reimu. She looked like utter hell. Her jaw worked silently, and her gaze fought to focus on her divine adversary.

“Impossible—!” hissed the Lady. She took wing while the battle’s momentum remained with her. A yowling feline blur rushed past her. As Reimu floated in a seething daze, Orin pounced through the sky, buzzing past the shrine maiden’s head. She came away with something indistinct and scintillating clutched in her jaws — a vengeful spirit.

The instant the possessing spirit left Reimu, so too did any trace of resistance. She plummeted from the sky.

“Reimu!” called the Lady, spinning forward into an intercept course. She caught the falling shrine maiden. Clutched to her feathered breast, Reimu’s skin felt clammy and chilled, and she shivered violently.

The Lady glided down into the warmer air of the springs and landed gently. She kindled the stellar furnace within her and her body radiated nurturing warmth. Wrapped in her embrace, Reimu felt so fragile, so human. She still couldn’t respond.

“Reimu,” the goddess said with a quiet urgency.

Orin landed a short distance away, noisily swallowed the evil spirit, then shifted out of her cat form. She nudged the errant sake bottle with her boot.

“Y’all went out drinking where you knew there were still vengeful spirits and then you got in a fight? In the buff? Wow,” Orin giggled. “Okuu, your new squeeze and her girlfriend are strong as all get out but they ain’t too bright.”

Within herself, her Utsuho sorted through the tumultuous emotions surrounding the conflict while her Marisa concerned herself with the unconscious Reimu. “So everything she said,” asked the Lady, “—that was because she was possessed?”

Orin winced. “We~ell, yer average vengeful spirit won’t bother if there’s nothing to latch onto in the first place. But once it finds something, then it just kinda shunts all the emotional responses towards whatever leads to the most violence. Then, if you’re lucky, I come by and I haul away the corpses.”

“Reimu, can you hear me?” asked her Marisa. Reimu’s shivering had subsided and her breathing evened out. The tidal weight of emotion within the Lady placed strain on the processes that kept her consciousnesses unified.

Orin sauntered closer and poked her head between the goddess’s two heads to look down at Reimu. “Still alive, huh? Welp. Guess that’s lucky too. Oh, wow—” she pressed herself closer. “—y’all are  _ warm.” _

As Orin started purring, Reimu’s eyelids fluttered open. “M-Marisa?” she breathed. “Oh… Lovely…”

“You’re hurt,” said the Lady. “I’m sorry.”

“I should have seen it.” Reimu smiled faintly and threaded her fingers through the white pinfeathers framing Marisa’s face — the face Marisa brought to the Lady’s fusion. “I should have known that radiance.”

Two of her constituent selves’ favorite women were pressed against her. It would be trivial to bring them within herself. She would not. The constraints of Reimu’s duty assured that she could never accept such a fusion. The Lady would never subject herself nor anyone she loved to such a feeling of disunity. There were other means to make her feelings known.

“Reimu,” said the Lady. Tears beaded at her eyes. “Reimu, call on our power. Call on me.”

Reimu breathed softly and closed her eyes. When she spoke, her voice was hushed. It carried a tone that had never been directed towards Marisa or Utsuho before. “O, Lady of the Black Sun...“

And there, blossoming within her mind, was a prayer. She had never realized how hungry she was for it until it reached her. Even battered as the shrine maiden was, it did not falter. This was the force of prayer that had once ferried her to the moon. There were avenues within the human mind through which the divine could flow. Reimu’s mental disciplines ensured that those avenues were as wide and welcoming as possible.

The Lady poured herself down Reimu’s prayer. Her presence entered the shrine maiden, and her stellar radiance began to slowly mend her wounds. Reimu gasped. Their minds met — Reimu’s, the Lady’s, those of her constituent selves; emotional currents in confluence. There was a morass of anguish around all parts of herself and of Reimu. Safe within their beacon of love, they began to sort through it.

From Reimu, her anguish stemmed from the purpose Gensokyo’s humans had assigned to the weapon they’d made out of her. It was a purpose now leveled against her dearest friend — the woman she loved.

From her Marisa, it was the anguish of the constant outsider. The social realities of her upbringing had kept her outside of a family, outside of her own gender, outside of polite society. Now it threatened to keep her outside of the love she dedicated herself towards every day.

From her Utsuho, it was the terror of losing the woman who had brought her back from the brink of dissolution and atrocity. What good was the surface and its humans if they would sentence that woman to death?

Reimu and the goddess wept together in silence. The shrine maiden needed no words or incantations to maintain their communion. All that needed to be said could be felt and known instead.

Within Utsuho stung the memories of a hell raven whom Hell left behind. When the bureaucracy of Hell found no space within its ledgers for the Hell of Blazing Fires, they had inflicted upon her the abandonment that had most defined her life. In its wake, she clung all the tighter to her fellow castoffs. How could every loss not wound her just as deeply as that first abandonment? How could she not strive ever more fiercely for any new cause she found?

Within Reimu simmered a resentment towards the villagers and their authorities for never affording her a choice in what she’d become. At the same time, there was a fierce pride in her power, and a fiercer pride in the friends she’d made despite the burden of her duty. Every youkai-infested flower viewing or kappa’s stall at a festival was a rebellion that she knew she was essential enough to get away with. So, too, was each a gesture towards a peaceful coexistence in a future in which she was no longer necessary. Was that not the plea of every weapon, to be someday sheathed?

Within Marisa bloomed the acceptance that she was truly something more than human now. From the start, ever since she had realized her own girlhood so long ago, she had craved for the means to transcend the limits of her humanity. It was only through growing into adulthood with Reimu that she had come not just to accept but to  _ enjoy _ the possibilities that still waited for her within her own humanity. The shrine maiden made being human bearable,  _ beautiful. _ How long could she still enjoy those uniquely human experiences now that she had twice tasted divinity?

They sat in the steam and the warmth and simply  _ felt bad _ with an acceptance, a purpose, and a unified clarity. And, after time and effort spent together, the anguish passed.

“Thank you,” breathed Reimu at last. As she wove her prayer to completion, she slowly released the Lady’s power.

“Call on us any time,” said the Lady. While her presence still lingered within the shrine maiden, she leaned in for a kiss. Reimu lifted herself to meet her lips. Their senses flared for a moment in positive feedback. Then, the prayer was complete. No longer did she feel Reimu’s mind, but the satisfaction remained.

Reimu sighed and nestled herself against the Lady’s warm plumage. “Hey,” she said at last. “Marisa said she had a joint. What happened to that?”

“Oh! It’s in our pack.” The Lady gestured towards the rock where Reimu and Marisa’s clothes were piled. It had remained miraculously untouched during the battle. “Orin, could you…?”

“I got it~” Orin peeled herself away from her cuddling spot with mild reluctance and strolled to the pile of personal effects. She hummed softly as she rummaged through Marisa’s pack, then gave an appreciative whistle. “Holy smokes, sis, you can roll ‘em!”

“It’s thanks to hard work and guts,” said the Lady.

Orin returned and nudged Reimu. “Scoot over, will ya?”

“She’s got two laps,” retorted the shrine maiden.

“Yeah, and you’re hoggin’ both of em. Scoot or I ain’t sharin’.”

Reimu grudgingly made room for the kasha. It made little difference to the Lady which lap they picked, but both settled in according to their favorite half. The Lady rested her head on top of Reimu’s. It was a novel feeling for her Marisa — unfused, the same position generally required stairs. Orin patted at her dress.

“Anyone got a light?” she asked.

“Who said you could have first hit?” Reimu sniped.

“Hey, you didn’t wanna get up!” said Orin.

“Yeah, and I’ve had a more emotionally taxing evening than you,” said Reimu.

The Lady plucked the joint from Orin’s mouth and kindled a tiny star at her fingertip. “Both of you get the second hit,” she said. Both of them looked back at the goddess. Reimu raised her eyebrows and Orin’s ears perked up.

“Now, breathe out,” said the Lady. She lit the joint on her miniature sun and pulled. The smoke tickled, thick and sweet. Her lungs could breathe plasma happily — smoke was nothing. She held it, savored it, then leaned down for a pair of kisses. As their lips met, she poured weed-smoke and goddess breath into Reimu and Orin. She let her kisses linger.

“That’s good,” said Reimu at last, between coughs. Orin, a creature of the Hells, simply leaned back against the Lady’s feathered breast and purred smoke from her nose. They passed the joint between the three of them at their leisure.

“Feelin’ a bit overdressed now, next to y’all,” said Orin.

“You’ve only got yourself to blame,” said the Lady.

The kasha shrugged out of her dress and sighed in relief. “A gal could get used to moonlight on her tits.”

“The surface world has its perks,” said Reimu, sinking back blissfully into the Lady’s warm embrace.

The Lady scratched behind Orin’s ears, and she purred in appreciation. They sat for a time and enjoyed the steamy springs, the winter’s full moon, and the strength of Nitori’s appropriated weed. It became clear, after a time longer, that Reimu had fallen asleep.

Orin snickered quietly. “She hits the blunt and then passes out immediately. What a sleepy little bitch.”

“She just fought within an inch of her life,” said the Lady. “Give her a break.”

“Sure, sure.”

The Lady made gently to get up. “C’mon. Let’s get her home.”

———

Marisa woke the next morning sandwiched between Reimu and Utsuho in the living quarters of Hakurei Shrine. Orin remained curled up in cat form at the foot of the futon. Marisa and Utsuho had regretfully unfused after bringing Reimu back to bed — neither felt like sleeping elsewhere and too many unannounced visitors dropped by the shrine. Marisa felt better than expected considering how close she had come to extermination last night. She ran her gaze over the sleeping shrine maiden, careful not to disturb her.

Reimu’s skin visible out of the covers sported several bruises and welts, though they were far less livid than they had been in the heat of battle. The Lady’s power had helped speed her healing in some capacity. It felt strange, intellectualizing her own divinity — the power of the sun and nuclear fusion seemed only tangentially associated with the body’s healing processes. Regardless, she had poured everything she could through Reimu’s spiritual connection. Even something tangential could have tangible effect with enough sheer magnitude. At least sheer magnitude was a technique Marisa understood well.

She would have to expand her understanding soon. She was a goddess now, that much was unmistakable. It didn’t feel real. She still had only the dimmest conscious awareness of how to harness her new abilities. Much as Marisa was loathe to patronize the Moriya shrine, Sanae would probably have some insight into her new reality.

A sleepy kiss to the back of her head redirected her reverie. She rolled gently to face Utsuho. This was something she would savor for as long as they were visiting the surface. She returned the kiss, and relished in the subtle tingling of something greater than herself that played through her senses every time they touched. She knew from the time she had spent intermingled with her memories that Utsuho had only had a week or so more experience with being a living goddess than Marisa, but she still felt that Utsuho was on an entirely different echelon from her. Perhaps it was the raw power that coursed through Utsuho from having eaten a dead god — power she could summon up and direct at a whim. Her fundamental metaphysics had been radically altered. Had the same thing happened to Marisa, too?

“My wing fell asleep,” Utsuho quietly groaned.

“Oh no,” said Marisa in a whispered laugh.

Utsuho shifted into a better position and Marisa accommodated her as best she could. She was silently grateful that Reimu was a heavy sleeper. They stayed in bed for most of the morning, quietly basking in the other’s presence. Hunger drove them to the kitchen eventually. Reimu slept until halfway through breakfast preparation, and remained in bed until breakfast was ready and waiting at the kotatsu.

“How ya feelin’?” asked Marisa, as Reimu joined them at the low table.

Reimu blinked groggily. “Thirsty.”

“Could be worse,” said Marisa, serving herself a portion of rice.

Reimu took a long drink of water. “And like a handcart ran me over.”

Orin held up her hands. “Hey, I ain’t run anybody over in weeks. Don’t look at me.”

Utsuho poured tea for herself and Orin. She glanced nervously at Reimu. “You’re not still gonna try to…”

Reimu waved her off. “It’s become clear to me,” she said between bites of rice, “that this is something different from a human becoming a youkai. After all, there’s no edict against a human becoming a god. You don’t see me try to exterminate Sanae every time I see her.”

“Nah, just that first time,” grinned Marisa.

Utsuho visibly relaxed. “Um, I’m glad. You’re strong and I’m glad I don’t have to keep fighting you. Fighting you for real, I mean.”

Reimu puffed herself up a bit with an air of quiet satisfaction. “If  _ I _ had been the one who stopped you down there, we’d never be in this mess.”

“Probably not,” said Marisa. “No offense, but I’m glad I beat you down there. I  _ like _ this mess.”

“Should’ve known, given the state of your house,” said Reimu. Her smile softened. “I shouldn’t tease you so much. I know you’re still getting used to all this.”

Breakfast wound down, and the four of them made short work of the dishes. As the midmorning sun warmed the day, they took their conversation to the front steps next to the offerings box.

“It’s a lot like when I channeled the trifold Sumiyoshi gods to take us to the moon, remember?” said Reimu. “A god’s spirit maintains its original power no matter what size it’s been split into.”

“And if you split it enough it can multiply infinitely, assumin’ you’ve got the proper containers,” nodded Marisa. “Does that make me a proper container, then?”

“A living avatar, maybe,” said Reimu. “I believe the Lady of the Black Sun’s spirit resides within both of you, even when you’re not physically a part of her.”

“My, my.” Pipe smoke drifted down amongst them in a lazy coil. Above them, an eye-filled gap split open the underside of the shrine’s awning. Yukari Yakumo stood within it, suspended upside-down. By all rights, her hair should have been covering the four of them and her robes should have been dangling around her face, but the gap seemed to provide its own personal gravity that kept her appearance impossibly immaculate. It was unsettling to look at her. “It’s heartening to see my previous efforts to expand dear Reimu’s knowledge base have borne fruit.”

“Shut up, Yukari,” said Reimu. “Why are you here?”

Marisa’s pulse spiked at Yukari’s sudden intrusion into their delicate conversation. She tried to assuage her panic with the rationalization that it was a fool’s errand trying to keep secrets from Yukari.

“Oh, simply to gather a bit more information on the political ramifications of the Hakurei shrine maiden’s latest decision.” She smiled coyly at Marisa and Utsuho. “My goodness, the boundaries on you two. Scandalizing. And me a woman of my years.”

“Look, if you’re gonna judge me—” said Reimu.

Yukari tittered softly. “Who said anything about judging? You know I’ve always valued that intuition of yours, my dear. I think it’s led you to a  _ fascinating _ outcome this time. Perhaps Gensokyo could use a living reminder of the memetic hazards of godhood.”

Marisa wanted to snap at her, but as she opened her mouth to speak, she had a sudden reevaluation of Yukari. She was irritating, troublesome, downright dangerous, but at the same time, here was a being who had been alive for thousands of years. Certainly she was doing  _ something _ right. “You think—” said Marisa. For a moment, her tone hadn’t caught the shift in her thoughts. “You think it’s gonna be safe for me and Okuu to be open about this?”

Utsuho nodded towards Yukari to second the question and clasped her hand over Marisa’s.

Yukari shrugged. “Any worthwhile venture bears some amount of risk. If you want odds, you’ll have to ask my shikigami. If you want to  _ succeed, _ you’ll have to forge a future with your own burning will. Was it not a founding principle of our Gensokyo that we must carve out from this world a place where we can flourish?”

Marisa and Utsuho remained silent in consideration of her statement. Reimu looked out across the courtyard. Orin’s ear flicked and she shifted into a better spot in Utsuho’s lap for her cat form. Yukari’s pipe smoke still drifted down, where logic dictated that it should have risen in the cool winter air.

“I could be one of those risks.” Yukari winked and sank upwards into her gap. She let her gloved hand dangle through it as it sealed itself. "Good luck either way," she called, gave a wave, and disappeared with the gap.

“There’s…” started Reimu. She took a breath. “If you want to learn how to channel her power better, there are a few mental techniques I could teach you, Marisa.”

“For real?” Marisa was struck by the offer. “I mean, yeah, right now I can’t do squat with it unless I’m literally about to die.”

“It’s probably not that different in practice from some of the techniques you already use for witchcraft,” said Reimu. “It’s largely a matter of your starting point and structure.”

“Damn,” said Marisa, grinning. “Guess I’m multiclassin’!”

———

Practicing Reimu’s techniques had kept them busy enough that they had nearly forgotten the threat of Aya’s followup interview. The crow tengu blew in on the midafternoon breeze.

“Shit,” said Marisa as she spotted the approaching reporter. “How much d’ya suppose she already knows?”

“It would’ve been pretty hard to miss that duel last night,” said Utsuho.

“We’ve got about 10 seconds to get our story straight,” said Reimu.

“Wait, maybe it’s fine. Look at her,” said Marisa. Aya landed in the courtyard. Her blazer was scuffed and torn at the shoulder seam. She approached them with the slow deliberation of someone trying to hide the amount of pain they were in.

“What happened to you?” asked Reimu.

Aya sighed. “Dire times, that respect for honest journalism could sink so low. I was assaulted.”

“Oh? Publish the wrong bit of gossip, maybe?” said Marisa.

Aya looked affronted. “I was just following up on your lead, Marisa. In the middle of my investigation into the Moriya shrine, I was assailed most severely.”

Marisa rubbed her jaw in sympathy. “Ah, yeah, Kanako’s got a mean right hook. And like, three hundred hunting knives.”

“No, no, Mrs. Yasaka was quite hospitable, actually. Very forthcoming. She was the one who found me after the assailant knocked me unconscious. No, it’s the damnedest thing,” Aya placed a hand on her chin in an expression of perturbed consideration. “I can’t seem to remember who did it.”

“Sounds like you should be at home sleepin’ it off,” said Marisa. “You gotta be careful with head injuries, y’know.”

“Alas,” said Aya, bracing her hands on her lower back and popping it theatrically. “Investigative journalism waits for no woman. Now, what can you tell me about the former Hell of Blazing Fires?”

Utsuho brightened. “Well, we may not be an official part of Hell anymore, but I think we’re due for a revival. Thanks to this fusion power project, we can be a relevant part of life both below ground and up here. You know, once we figure out how to harness it and everything.”

“The future’s so bright, we’ll all need parasols,” said Aya, jotting in her notebook. “The kappa always go feral for the scientific articles. What about the journey down?”

“Well, let’s see,” said Marisa. “There was bucket gal, the earth spider, that bridge lady, and then we made it to the Former Capital.”

“That’s where we were separated,” said Reimu. “Marisa managed to slip past her, but I got roped into a drinking competition against Yuugi the Strong.”

Aya whistled. “One of the Big Four of the Mountain? How did you fare?”

Marisa snickered. “She was laid out for like a whole day. I went on ahead to the Palace of the Earth spirits.”

“That’s where me and Orin usually live,” said Utsuho. “Orin is the kasha out back cleaning up the hot springs. We’re both pets of Miss Satori Komeiji.”

“...Satori Komeiji,” Aya said under her breath as she transcribed. She frowned and tapped her pen on her chin. “Komeiji. Komeiji?”

“Somethin’ wrong?” asked Marisa.

“Mm. Thought I remembered something, but it’s gone. Go on.”

“Satori is…” It was strange, how another’s memories had informed Marisa’s feelings regarding the resident youkai of Chirei. There was an emotional space around her own brief interactions with her that softened and deepened from Utsuho’s memories, clinging to her like a half-forgotten dream. She thought of how Satori had kept their secret. “A lotta folks down there don’t like her because she can read minds, but… she’s sweet. I kinda feel bad about bargin’ in there and makin’ a ruckus.”

“That’s just the Gensokyo greeting,” said Reimu, sipping her tea. “Say it with spellcards.”

Marisa continued. “She showed me out to the courtyard after we tussled some. There’s an even deeper tunnel down there that connects to the Hell of Blazing Fires. Orin fought me down there while I was lookin’ for the core. Y’know, it’s real sweet, actually — the whole reason the geyser up here got infested with vengeful spirits is ‘cuz Orin spilled ‘em in there. She was trying to get the attention of someone strong on the surface to come down and reign in Okuu.”

“I must admit, it’s hard to see it,” Aya said to Utsuho. “You’re as pleasant an interviewee as I’ve ever had. Was it truly so bad?”

Utsuho leaned forward on the stairs and rested her elbows on her knees. “Have you ever eaten a dead god, Miss Shameimaru?”

“I can’t say that I have,” said Aya.

Utsuho shook her head. “I almost lost myself. Marisa found me down there and… she brought me back.”

“Fascinating,” said Aya. “I’ll have to remember your cautionary tale when next I find myself peckish around a dead god. Now, what about spellcards?”

Marisa groaned. “Did you really come here for a damn play-by-play?”

“Miss Kirisame,” Aya said pointedly, “duelists across Gensokyo wait on tenterhooks for the Bunbunmaru’s Danmaku Digest. I regret to inform you that this special feature does  _ not _ write itself. Would you rob them of the chance to see the dueling styles of the underworld? Would you cut down this beautiful opportunity for cultural exchange just as it has barely sprouted?”

Utsuho rested her chin on her hand and gazed across at Marisa. “Go on, which one was your favorite?”

Marisa scratched the back of her head. “Oof. I mean — it was hard to rank ‘em when you were trying to kill me with ‘em, y’know? But ‘Hell and Heaven Meltdown’ was pretty fuckin’ cool. It was hard to dodge when I was stuck between two suns. Plus, that was the first time you just straight-up  _ swam _ through a sun. Really left an impression.”

Utsuho blushed.

“Could I trouble you for a demonstration?” Aya asked. The reporter’s eyes gleamed avariciously. 

Reimu cleared her throat. “Not at my shrine, you can’t.”

“Fine, fine,” Aya smiled innocently. “Now, what about—”

“Marisa! Marisa!” Across the courtyard, running under the archway at the entrance of Hakurei shrine, came Nitori.

Reimu sighed. “And now the kappa’s here too? Great. Wasn’t expecting any donations today anyway.”

Marisa shot a nervous glance at Utsuho to find the hell raven shooting a nervous glance right back at her. Nitori reached the group and leaned forward to catch her breath, bowing under the weight of her backpack.

“Nitori,” said Marisa, making a conscious effort to unclench her teeth. “Can this wait?”

Nitori took a deep breath and looked up at Marisa. “I finished it!”

“Nitori,” said Marisa. Conscious effort had failed her.  _ “Can this wait?” _

Nitori shook her head. She slung her pack from her shoulder and started rummaging through it. “I was just so fired up over that egg you laid that I couldn’t stop until the case was done!”

Marisa groaned. Reimu sputtered on her tea and started coughing violently. Aya looked from the kappa to the witch, then flipped to a new page in her notebook.

“Nitori, have you slept?” asked Utsuho.

“No!”

Marisa finished groaning, then took a deep breath. “For  _ fuck’s _ sake, Nitori! Can you read the room?”

Aya jotted down shorthand notes and muttered under her breath. “‘Local Witch Lays Egg.’”

“Found it!” cried Nitori. She pulled a cloth-wrapped object from the depths of her pack and pulled away the twine around it. It looked almost like an oversized crystal ball. The round, four-legged base was of rosewood with a tasteful silver inlay. Around its rim ran a bubble of glass, too full for a dome but not quite a globe. In the center, nestled in a perfectly-sized indent within the rosewood base, was the glowing egg.

“Wow!” said Utsuho. “You made that in a day?”

“Well, I had to do some prototyping first,” said Nitori. “Now check  _ this _ out.”

She flipped a switch on the back of the base. The case began to hum softly and a corona of plasma coalesced around the egg inside. Gentle beams of corsucating rainbow light played between the egg and the glass bubble. Nitori touched the glass and several beams converged at her fingertip.

“‘Local Witch Lays Magical Novelty Egg’?” muttered Aya.

All protestations died on Marisa’s lips. “Oh my god,” she said. She took it carefully from Nitori and ran her hand over it, dazzled by the way the arcs followed her touch. It tingled softly. She put her cheek against the glass. “I love it.”

Utsuho tested it herself. “How is it doing that?” she laughed.

“It’s all a bit technical,” said Nitori. “The natural thaumic resonance of the egg is enough to create a conductive plasma field when you run it back through a repeater or two. This next bit is just personal conjecture, but I think it might have some sort of connection or attraction to the dreams of the living.”

“Hey, Reimu,” said Marisa. “When was the last time you had a new goshintai to display?”

Reimu’s face betrayed a fierce internal deliberation. “Absolutely not,” she said at last. “It’s bad enough competing with the Moriya shrine for faith. I already have to do upkeep on their little branch shrine down here. I don’t need my best friend skimming off the top too.”

“Stall fees~” sang Marisa.

“Absolutely not!” said Reimu.

“If you don’t mind my asking—” said Aya.

“We do!” said Marisa.

“—how in the blazes did you manage that? I’ve laid dozens of eggs, but none quite so...” She gestured at the glowing case, then shrugged.

“She told me it was a group effort,” said Nitori.

Aya sized up Utsuho with a newfound respect. Utsuho sighed. “Why don’t we just tell them?”

“I can think of a million reasons, but…” Marisa leaned back against the stairs. “Well, we were gettin’ to it anyway.”

They told them the rest of what had happened down in the core, haltingly and with considerable gloss over the more explicit details. Reimu, Aya, and Nitori all listened with rapt attention.

Aya tapped her pen on her chin as they finished recounting it. “I must say, publishing some of that would almost certainly violate public decency guidelines. And to think, you sent me off to the Moriya shrine yesterday to be waylaid by some mystery goon!”

“You sent your own damn self,” sniffed Marisa. “Yesterday, I hadn’t even told Reimu yet, and I wasn’t about to do that with the paparazzi in the room.”

“Mm,” said Aya. “And what  _ are _ the thoughts of the Hakurei shrine maiden?”

Reimu looked up to gather her thoughts. “We had a bit of a misunderstanding at first.”

“A misunderstanding? Wait — the signs of fresh combat?” Aya ran her eyes over Reimu’s appearance, then wailed. “I missed a duel at the Hakurei shrine?”

“As I was saying,” said Reimu. “A misunderstanding. Sure, it’s my job to reign in rogue goddesses and exterminate humans who become youkai — but Marisa already reigned in the rogue goddess here and she hasn’t become a youkai.”

“I was all jumbled up while I was digesting the corpse of Lord Yatagarasu,” said Utsuho. “Marisa helped me sort myself out. We took all that power, all that… metaphysical tangle, and we turned it into something new together.”

“‘Local Witch Attains Godhood, Lays Egg’...? No, no.” Aya snapped her notebook shut. “Well, you’ve given me more than enough to publish something on the geyser incident. As to this newcomer to the divine landscape of Gensokyo, I’d rather do a bit more research into the ramifications before publishing something hasty.”

“We need a cool outfit first,” said Marisa. “So far, all we got is the hat and the cape.”

“The feathers aren’t enough?” asked Utsuho.

“Most goddesses around here don’t go for the ‘titties-out’ look,” said Reimu.

Utsuho shrugged. “Their loss.”

Marisa hefted the display case in her grasp again. “I’m still not over this. Nitori, ya really outdid yourself.”

Nitori beamed. “Thanks! When you make more, drop a few off with us, okay? There’s still so much to test.”

“You got it,” said Marisa. “Almost makes me feel bad about all the weed I’ve stolen from you.”

Nitori’s smile turned manic. “Please stop doing that, human!”

Aya stowed her notebook and made sure her personal effects were ready for flight. “I anticipate I’ll call on you again when I have further questions. Thank you for your time.”

“Take care,” Utsuho waved. “Don’t get thrashed again.”

Aya waved back and took off into the winter sky. Marisa let out a breath and with it felt the escape of a tension she hadn’t even realized had filled her. It was all in the open now. Whatever would come of it, she wouldn’t have to face it alone. She still had the women she loved.

“What if we called it a ‘Phoenix Egg’?” muttered Reimu.

“Do you  _ want _ Aya to write an exposé on my sex life to debunk that? Because that’s how you make her do that!” Marisa said.

“Stall fees, though,” groaned Reimu. “I have to finance a whole construction project to get those hot springs how they should be.”

Nitori’s eyes gleamed. “Did you say ‘hot springs construction project’? Because my prices are negotiable.”

Utsuho clapped her hand on Nitori’s shoulder and gave her the look of a concerned senior administrator. “Not on no sleep, they aren’t.”

Nitori blinked and ran a hand in front of her face. Her eyes still gleamed. “Miss Reiuji, you have a point! I’m going to bed!” She hefted her backpack to her shoulder and strode back out the shrine entrance. At the archway, she turned and waved. “Stop stealing our weed!” called Nitori, and was gone.

“Hey, hey,” said Marisa. She stretched her arms out and pulled Reimu and Utsuho to her side. “I love you. Both of you.”

Utsuho made a pillow of Marisa’s hat as she leaned against her. “I love you too, Marisa,” she said.

Reimu sipped her tea, then closed her eyes and rested her head on Marisa’s. “I love you too, you troublesome witch.”

Marisa sighed contentedly, surrounded by the warmth of two girlfriends.

“Let’s build a fuckin’ onsen together.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you take off your clothes before you do a danmaku battle you can shave a pixel off of your hitbox


End file.
